


wooden horse

by birbwell



Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005), Brokeback Mountain - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, For Practice, M/M, woodcarving: the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 06:44:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18867862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birbwell/pseuds/birbwell
Summary: Ennis likes woodcarving. Jack likes Ennis.





	wooden horse

“Whatcha got there, Ennis?”

“Wood.”

“I know that.”

It was a minute, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it detail, but by the crackling fire Jack could barely see the corner of Ennis’ lips pull up into a smirk. Cheeky.

And nothing else was said after that. Jack watched idly as Ennis carved away at a chunky block of wood, taking a shape that he couldn’t begin to guess. Brokeback Mountain was still then, with only the sounds of the mountain breeze rifling through tree boughs and the embers popping from the bonfire disrupting the midnight reverie.

The two men had only been up the mountain a few days. Jack had sized up Ennis before that, looking him up and down outside Aguirre’s trailer, and then in the bar. Quiet, firm- much like the mountain, Jack thought. How damn poetic, Jack Twist.

Maybe that’s why he seemed so in his element here. Down below, Ennis had been quiet- always was, but there’s a wariness to him that he couldn’t place. His gaze would be glued to the pavement like it was the most interesting thing there was in the entirety of Wyoming (but it could be, for all Jack knew, because Wyoming was a nowhere fucking place), skipping over every pebble and crack, always flitting away from everyone else’s eyes.

Up at Brokeback, Ennis was still quiet. But he’d shed the stiff caginess from his bones, cast them down on the base of the mountain. He was quiet because he needn’t tell the mountain anything, he needn’t tell the sheep anything, and that was just right by him. At least, that’s how Jack saw it.

But Jack wasn’t no Brokeback. He wasn’t no sheep neither. Ennis intrigued him. He ached to know more about him. Yet here they were, sitting across each other around the fire, and not a word could be heard. The silence suffocated him. He swallowed thickly.

“Howd’ya learn ta do that?” Jack asked.

Ennis simply replied, “Had nothin’ better ta do.”

Ennis had fashioned the block into a crude figure of a horse. He whittled at it still, tiny ribbons of wood trailing after the blade. Jack’d only asked for the sake of asking, but he had to admit, he sure could carve. 

“Never could get the hang a’ that,” Jack mused, watching the blade skip across the wood.

Ennis gave a noncommittal grunt. The other man took that as a signal to go on, adding, “it’s a delicate lil’ thing. My hands could never quite figure it out. Tried when I was a kid and then some, but all I did was ruin a perfectly good piece a’ wood.”

Ennis hummed in acknowledgement but didn’t say much else. Jack screwed his lips at that, and said, “Yer folk don’t talk much, do ya?”

“Nope.” The man kept his eyes on the blade, the wood- anywhere, really, but Jack.

A good long minute passed.

“Mind teaching me?” Jack asked, heart less in woodcarving and more in Ennis.

“Yep.”

Jack was a bit ashamed to admit that that reply surprised him. “You mind?”

Ennis’ lips twitched. He shifted on his haunches. “Yes I mind. Ya can’t be bothered ta take yer own sweet time with it- and yer throwin’ a hissy fit?”

Ennis didn’t get any louder, but there was an edge to his voice that stunned Jack into silence. His eyes bore deeper into the horse, never leaving it as he spoke. “Ya gotta take it nice and slow.”

The stallion-shaped figure’s surface resembled a bitten apple core. Ennis continued, “Wood is ugly. No goin’ round that. It’s rough and ugly and it gets bark everywhere.”

The corners of the flat wooden planes would catch at the blade as he worked, little bits of sawdust chipping off from it. It began looking more rounded. Jack watched in rapt fascination, studying the bright orange glinting off the knife and the deft, weathered fingers that held them. He wondered, briefly, what they would feel like on him. 

“You can work it, though. Make it less ugly.” His voice had dropped to a murmur. Jack found himself looking at Ennis, the fire’s light moving wildly over his skin. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but Jack swore he saw a plaintive expression cross his face. 

“Pretty, even.”

He held the figurine against the moon, seemingly peering through it like a looking-glass. It illuminated all of its coarse edges and stray fibers. In the light of the moon, Ennis’s jaw was a little less tight, his brows a little less creased. Jack was unsure, (and he will be for a long, long while) but it looked as if the walls Ennis put around himself were a little shorter. 

Ennis shifted the horse in his hand and said, “But it takes time ta get there.”

The little stallion was far from perfect, but it was getting there.

*  
Jack woke up to the smell of wet grass, conifers, and the faint musk of burnt charcoal. Ennis had insisted he hit the sack so he wouldn’t have to switch shifts too late. True enough, he hadn’t even waited till he was awake: there was not a soul to be seen in the campsite.

The sky out was as blue as it was the days before. Soft white and grey streaked the clouds, and Jack felt that they were the same streaks as yesterday. A sharp chill bit at his cheeks and the tip of his nose like the mountain air had always done. Jack huffed. Did last night even happen?

He ambled towards the worn mess table by the tent. The food must have been the same leftover elk from yesterday. That or it would have been the goddamn beans. He’d been ready to grab a plate until something caught his eye.

Perched on the table was the wooden horse from last night. The blemishes on it had been whittled down, and any string of sawdust that remained had been plucked off. All that remained was the little horse Ennis had seen in his head.

Jack gently took the figurine in his hands. Somewhere in Brokeback, Ennis was working another block of wood.

**Author's Note:**

> ms word makes short paragraphs look long :[ anyways, im rusty so might as well do this, right


End file.
